Breakthrough in Ultra Thin Photo Resists and Dielectrics for Semiconductors from Nanometrix

Nanometrix Inc. has announced a breakthrough in ultra thin "photo resist" and dielectrics for semiconductors.

At the SEMI NanoFourm in Austin Texas Patrick O’Connor, General Manager of Nanometrix announced that the firms research team has been successful in producing films of photo resist on silicon wafers ≤ 25nm in thickness.

Dr. Picard V-P R&D leading a team that includes Juan Schneider V-P Technologies & Mame Fatou-Seye have produced 8 inch diameter wafers coated with a 25nm layer of PMMA with a surface roughness of 1nm.

As semiconductor firms strive to keep up with Moore’s Law a major technological “Brick Wall” has been the line width limitations caused by the “height to width ratio” due to thick photo resist layers currently used in the photolithography process. Currently, typical photo resist layers are in the 120 – 150nm range. Because of the thickness, scattering and edge effects are present preventing feature size reduction in semiconductor devices. Current lithographic technologies are seeking for new and innovative ways to reduce feature size, because size matters.

Posted November 14^th, 2004